James Cameron Has One Pet Peeve About The Way People Talk About The Avatar Movies

Doubt James Cameron at your own peril. The acclaimed filmmaker has made a career out of setting his sights on the most ambitious projects, defying the biggest skeptics out there, and spinning the riskiest of gambits into box office gold. All of that explains how he's been able to essentially cash in a blank check time and again with impunity, but it also provides helpful context for why he tends to know what he's talking about. And so when he describes one of his biggest pet peeves regarding how we discuss, say, the "Avatar" movies, it's probably worth taking it to heart.

Fresh off of delivering his final cut of "Avatar: Fire and Ash" to Disney, Cameron has begun making the press rounds ahead of the highly-anticipated sequel's December release. His first stop on this tour happened to be an appearance on Matt Belloni's "The Town" podcast, where he opened up about all things "Avatar"-related. But early in the conversation, he addressed how one particular recurring discussion point with regards to motion-capture performances sticks in his craw — and it's easy to understand why. As he explained:

"I'll tell you what annoys me, is when it's misrepresented — especially in media — that, let's say, Sigourney Weaver voiced the character of Kiri. When you voice a part for, let's say a Pixar film — we all love Pixar movies, I'm not dissing them. But when you come in to do that as an actor, you stand at a podium for a day or two or maybe three and you say the part, you act it out verbally. And then a team of animators goes off and does the physical character, the visual interpretation, of that voice part. That's not what Sigourney or any of the other actors [in 'Avatar'] did."

For the man who literally dove miles underwater to explore the wreck of the Titanic or helped invent entirely new technology to film his decades-long passion project, it stands to reason that he would go the extra mile when it comes to defending the hard work of his actors. Lest we forget, pretty much every frame in each "Avatar" movie is produced through digital magic — with an army of animators and visual effects wizards painstakingly creating the world of Pandora (and its extraterrestrial characters), all while using the cast's motion-capture performances as a foundation. It's that last point, however, that James Cameron insists on giving due credit to among moviegoers and media alike.

Whatever your hot takes on "Avatar," "The Way of Water," and the upcoming "Fire and Ash" may be, just make sure you don't misrepresent what the actors are actually doing to bring the Na'vi to life. During his conversation with Matt Belloni on "The Town," Cameron went even further to describe the lengths his cast goes to in order to deliver truly groundbreaking performances in his movies. According to Cameron:

"For making 'Avatar 2' and 'Avatar 3,' we did 18 months of [performance] capture. They perform everything. Every breath is recorded. Every bit of movement, every hand gesture. [...] We even had a big tank here so, if you saw the characters underwater, the actors were underwater. If you saw them riding a creature, they were riding a water jet-powered [machine]."

It's certainly hard to argue with him here. We can safely expect more of the same trend-setting innovation from both the cast and the crew in "Avatar: Fire and Ash." The threequel explodes into theaters on December 19, 2025.